Question Can I use old hard drive in a used computer

[Monkieboi]

My brother is getting a new computer so he is giving me his old one but he is taking his hard drives. Can I take my old hard drive from my current computer and use it as the main drive for my hand me down computer?

 

[USAFRet]

You're expecting the OS on that old drive to just boot up, with no problems?

 

[claudiusraphaelpaeth]

My brother is getting a new computer so he is giving me his old one but he is taking his hard drives. Can I take my old hard drive from my current computer and use it as the main drive for my hand me down computer?

If you are using a GNU/Linux OS and in it no vendor drivers for the graphics card are installed, then you will be fine; Almost all of the Top 100 most used GNU/Linux-systems always check on boot for the hardware, to load the drivers needed.

If you are using an OS from the Windows NT family, independent of generation, point-release and edition, you will have to prepare the OS to be succesfully bootable. It is not much work, easiest would be if the HDD with your actual OS is still in your old PC and you have the to-be-new-PC at hand. After the OS is prepared and put in the to-be-new-PC and yet still something is missing, meaning the boot was not succesful, you put the drive back in the old PC and we find another solution, until it works.

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Hope it helps. I am sure. Thanks for rading.